From Stacey – https://our-compass.org/2019/09/16/motherhood-led-me-to-quit-dairy-farming-forever/ 

 

WAV Comment – I personally am finding it difficult to accept some of what is being said by the ex dairy farmer here in relation to her change – “Mothers who gave birth during snow or storms had their babies taken immediately and didn’t even get to clean them first”. “It is not uncommon for day-old babies to have the tube incorrectly forced into their lungs and drown in colostrum within a minute or so, with colostrum pouring back out their noses. When this happens, there are many more fearful and crying babies lined up behind these, so the dead baby is thrown onto a pile of other dead ones as you don’t have time to do anything else but keep working on automatic pilot”.

So it was only when you personally had your first child you related to the mother cow having hers taken away within 24 hours ? – and what I ask, if you had gone on to not have any kids ? – would you still be a dairy farmer finding it acceptable that baby calves are torn away from their mothers almost immediately by your industry ? – am finding it really hard to accept what the ‘animal activist’ goes on about – with the tears and all that. For me, any real activist would surely have been aware (in advance) of the real horrors of the dairy industry beforehand and completely refused to get involved with it. I find it most sad that we have to wait for the birth of a human baby for this ‘activist’ to find out what the dairy industry is about. And most importantly; where would she be now if she had never become a mother ? – PS: what is husband partner doing now ? – still working at this facility stealing baby calves away from their mothers; or has he changed track also ? – we are not told in the video – I do respect her for her change of policy after the birth of her baby; but find it hard to accept that she was not educated enough at the start to know about what this industry is about; male calves being taken away within hours of birth; or shot in the head at birth when people like her partner find out that the cow has given birth to a male. Mark.

 

The following is Jess Strathdee’s first person account of her years spent working on a dairy farm, and what motivated her to finally leave the industry forever. 

In February 2013, my partner and I moved to live and work on a West Canterbury, New Zealand dairy farm with a 600 head herd. My partner was the second in command on the farm, and I was employed as a relief milker and calf-rearer while starting my studies with Massey University via correspondence.

When I first started milking that year, it was getting to the last months of the season, before the cows were dried off for the winter. They didn’t have a great volume of milk at that time, and the milking would generally only take an easy 2.5 to 3 hours. I remember feeling a sense of pride, solidarity and sisterhood with the cows, honoured that I was privileged to handle such a private area and process of their bodies. Except, of course, on dairy farms nothing about an animal’s body or reproductive process is respected as private or belonging to them.

…the dead baby is thrown onto a pile of other dead ones as you don’t have time to do anything else but keep working on automatic pilot.

Oh God, what I numbed myself to.

 

The Babies

Then calving started. I knew, logically, that cows need babies to produce milk, but I’d never really thought about the fact that those babies are almost immediately taken away from their mothers. On my first morning, I stood in the freezing pens with tiny babies who looked absolutely shattered; still wet with afterbirth, bloody umbilical cords dangling. Mothers who gave birth during snow or storms had their babies taken immediately and didn’t even get to clean them first.

The tiniest babies are tube fed, which involves a tube being shoved down their throats and into their tiny stomachs, and a litre of colostrum poured in. This is traumatizing to watch, and I can’t even imagine how it must feel. Their poor, tiny, soft mouths and throats that should just be suckling small amounts from their mothers while their systems are learning to work, must be so sore from the tubing.

It is not uncommon for day-old babies to have the tube incorrectly forced into their lungs and drown in colostrum within a minute or so, with colostrum pouring back out their noses. When this happens, there are many more fearful and crying babies lined up behind these, so the dead baby is thrown onto a pile of other dead ones as you don’t have time to do anything else but keep working on automatic pilot.

Oh God, what I numbed myself to…

Please read the rest HERE

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